Today Paul had relatives coming in from Grande Junction Colorado to meet up and take him for dinner. As such we all agreed to try and do something that would get us back early. Chris and I would go into town on our own after we got back and do some “touristing around” and find our own dinner.

With this plan we (of course) started our day with the lovely ladies at the Love Muffin, and I even tried a muffin, Oh so good! (Insert inappropriate joke here). Today we would head into Canyon Lands National Park Via Long Canyon, and then do Gemini Bridges roads and Dead Horse State Park.

We headed up 279 on the left, just north of the bridge on 191 over the Green River following the rock wall (climbers wall) along the canyon. We turned into Long canyon on the right and ran the (at first) easy canyon run in the early morning light. The road then quickly climbed via a series of switchbacks and became very steep. We were now officially entering “Pucker Pass” Coming around yet another tight switchback I saw the iconic (seen in so many ride reports on Moab) Rock tunnel, or as I call it the Donut Hole. We all made it under fairly easily and climbed into the sandy, narrow canyon for what the pass is named for. It has some fairly good, rock steps with deep powder in between. I managed to dig myself a trench but didn’t crash. I was however in no need of the side stand as she was up to the swing arm again. With a little assistance on the slippery steps we (Paul and I) helped get Chris and the DR over the steps and to the top. This we didn’t realize until the next day, having never been up this run before.

Courtesy of Payner

Courtesy of Payner

Courtesy of Payner

I was too afraid of dropping the big bike, getting up the dusty steps, in the very narrow canyon so I opted to turn around. It may have been doable but it wasn’t worth the risk (to me) as the rock would be very unforgiving. Paul felt the same way, so Chris turned around (from the top) and came back down. Had we realized (at the time) how close we had come I think we would have persisted despite the risks. Back down the Canyon and up the highway to Gemini Bridges road. This was a breeze after our warm up in Long Canyon. We met another rider on a Yamaha 250 that we had talked to one morning at the Muffin. He described the white “sand” on Gemini road as “Moon Dust” and I think that was as accurate a description as is possible (not having been to the moon yet). The view of the highway into Moab from up on Gemini is worth the time alone to do the road.

The trail has a nice variety from hard pack wide red gravel to hard rock steps, to Moon dust troughs. The walk out to the actual namesake is also a must, unless heights terrify you. The road ends up on 313 and we checked out Dead Horse Point next, and wow what views there were, truly awe inspiring even if it was too late in the day for really good light, like sunrise would provide. Next time we would have to camp there.

Then off to Canyon lands National Park and some truly fun, twisty pavement in some sections, sorry my speedometer must have stopped working, oops. After exploring every inch of pavement we discussed returning on Shaffer road, but we might run late and Paul could not risk it, no big deal.

After lots of photos we returned to the Campground and cooled off, cleaned up and left Paul to the mercy of his relatives. I spotted what I though was them just as Chris and I were driving out the gate.

We parked in front of Zak’s on the main drag. Great place for pizza and burgers as it turns out. It has an eclectic décor but very modern and clean. The food was reasonably priced and really good. After dinner we hit the Liquor store for another bottle of fine single malt scotch and went t-shirt shopping. I, also found a few new decals for the saddlebags (what can I say, it’s a weakness). Back to camp we went to enjoy at least one of our purchases. I was disappointed that Wayne had packed up while we were out riding as we wanted to take him out for dinner, since the one time we dragged him along he insisted in paying. I hope his ride home to Nevada was a good one! Paul returned and reported that he had a good visit with his family and I was happy that he had managed to fit that in.

Tomorrow would be our last day in Moab and we planned out what we wanted to accomplish which would include Shafer road, The Shaffer switchbacks again, and Long Canyon (top to Bottom). Then go see the best of Arches Park. Remember we skipped one turnoff that first day in Moab. It turns out that is where the best Arches, and most easily accessible ones are, who knew?

Days ago I already decided that I would return to Moab again so I wasn’t stressed that we didn’t get done everything that I had heard about in Ride Reports. I kept reminding myself that this was my (and my friends) vacation and was about having fun, not ticking off boxes on a to-do list. From that stand point, I had succeeded, and the Moab part of the trip had been a total success.

__________________I've learned so much from my mistakes. I'm thinking of making a few more.09 KTM 990 Adv

That is new, it has only been there for a couple years. Prior to that you could drive right down to the Arch, indeed people drove right across the arch. I never had it in me to try that in my jeep, but I saw a quad do it once.

The second photo you may have found, but if not trust me it is there, a memorial to a jeeper who went over the cliff. He was the uncle of a friend of mine. As it turned out he had neglected to put on his parking brake and the vehicle started to roll off the cliff. In an effort to save the valuable jeep he jumped back in, sadly failing to stop the jeep he and the jeep went over and it killed him (obviously).

I am not sure now, but you can see a road at the bottom of the canyon, you used to be able to drive right up to the base of the arch. LOTS of sand, but a very nice drive/ride as well. Someone told me that road was closed as well, so I have not been back to find out for sure since. The blockade of the top (first photo) was such a disappointment that we have not been back often at all. Just so you know beyond where the sign now is the road went over several large steps to get down to the arch, and it was a lot of fun to enjoy getting down there. Also when you are coming in from Moab there are several large steps that have been ground down my heavy equipment, presumably in an effort to make it more accessible to people who would then have to walk to the arch.

__________________

"Do you know what a soldier is...? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war."
-Allan Massie

That is new, it has only been there for a couple years. Prior to that you could drive right down to the Arch, indeed people drove right across the arch. I never had it in me to try that in my jeep, but I saw a quad do it once.

The second photo you may have found, but if not trust me it is there, a memorial to a jeeper who went over the cliff. He was the uncle of a friend of mine. As it turned out he had neglected to put on his parking brake and the vehicle started to roll off the cliff. In an effort to save the valuable jeep he jumped back in, sadly failing to stop the jeep he and the jeep went over and it killed him (obviously).

I am not sure now, but you can see a road at the bottom of the canyon, you used to be able to drive right up to the base of the arch. LOTS of sand, but a very nice drive/ride as well. Someone told me that road was closed as well, so I have not been back to find out for sure since. The blockade of the top (first photo) was such a disappointment that we have not been back often at all. Just so you know beyond where the sign now is the road went over several large steps to get down to the arch, and it was a lot of fun to enjoy getting down there. Also when you are coming in from Moab there are several large steps that have been ground down my heavy equipment, presumably in an effort to make it more accessible to people who would then have to walk to the arch.

Wow I am sorry to hear about your friends Uncle! That would be awful. It is a long way down!! It was making me nervous just having Chris and Paul so close to the edge in that last picture. It was really windy when we were up there.

__________________I've learned so much from my mistakes. I'm thinking of making a few more.09 KTM 990 Adv

Day 11 - Movie stars, you’re not in Kansas anymore, pulling off Pucker

Our last day in Moab and we had a fairly easy list. Shafer road past Potash was first on it. After more fine coffee and food at the Muffin we were off! We did another quick run across 279 past Potash and onto the gravel of Shafer. We started seeing Sony Pictures trucks almost immediately as we rode past the (weird blue) drying ponds. They were crawling across the rocky steps and through the fine powdery silt that makes up most of the road. I stopped to spark up the Go Pro just in case anything interesting happened. I was following the road (and gps) when I came upon a large cluster of movie crew vehicles and wasn’t really sure how to get past. One of the crew guys came over and we started talking. He was interested in my Leatte armor and told me he had a neck brace and Thor armor. We discussed the road and he related “Mr. Smith and the Director came in the road once” “now they fly around in the chopper”. I had spotted that from across the valley the day before. A security guard came over, looking up at my Go Pro and asked, “Is that on?” I ignored the question, and slowly motion no with my head. He had other things to attend to and walked away. The guy I was talking to (after he was gone) asked if “I was running” I told him yes and he looked up at the camera and waved and said Hi. We chatted and joked for a bit longer and then as one of the “players” in Sci-Fi spandex was waiting to get into the shuttle van we carried on.

We were following a few very slow set vehicles along the road and Chris and I finally cautiously passed. The road had been recently “improved” so the big vehicles for the movie could actually make it to one of the cliff-side shoot locations. This entailed adding loose gravel to fill in some of the worse “steps” Chris ran wide on an uphill corner and just over a berm of this loose gravel. I made the mistake of stopping on the hill to make sure he was OK (he was fine and got going on his own). When he got himself going I let out the clutch and dug a hole right where I was stopped (this had become all too common a theme). I hopped off the bike and gently rocked it back and forth using the clutch and was almost out of the hole when the bike started to feel like it was going over. I pulled in the brake and clutch and did my best to wrestle the bike straight up. Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement and turned my head., still fighting the bike. The reason for the bike’s sudden temperament became clear. A movie crew guy was holding the back of the bike and trying to “help”. When I realized this I felt better, and silly at the same time. He said he would push so I mounted up and tried to not spray him with gravel. I waved as I rode off and hoped that he wasn’t hurting considering that he was in shorts and a t-shirt.

We stopped just past the shoot site far enough away (I hoped) that the security that we passed would not see us. I pulled out the big lens to get some shots before we carried on. This was as close to Hollywood as I had ever got and it was a bit of a thrill.

Just below the rock face in the water

The trail was very scenic and easy after this point but it was again getting scorching hot., I can’t imagine doing this in July or August.

Near where the road meets up with White rim Trail (at the bottom of Shafer Switchbacks) it gets a lot rockier and has a few washes to go through, but still easy for us. In this stretch I came up behind a Chevy Traverse that was crawling along on the rocks. Chris rode past and stopped with Paul right behind me. I stopped just behind the Traverse and was belly laughing at the Kansas plate on the back. The window rolled down and an arm (and head) stuck out motioning me over to him. I rolled up with a huge grin and said “ You’re not in Kansas anymore!” The joke was lost on the young guy. The older couple with him (parents?) didn’t look happy. He asked if I thought he could make it and I said I honestly didn’t know, as I wasn’t familiar with the last bit of this road. I told him my GPS showed that he only had about ¾ of a mile to the junction and that if he made it to turn right! I told him if he turned left he probably wouldn’t make that trail.

When we got to the junction we waited for about 10 minutes to see if he would get through but there was no sign of him. I told the guys that when I got to the top of Shafer I was going over to let the Rangers know about them just in case. It was too hot to be stranded out there for any length of time. After climbing the switchbacks again (It seemed steeper the second time, funny how the mind works) I zipped over to the Canyon Lands gate and talked to the Ranger who thanked me.

From there we headed over to Long Canyon road just around the corner of 313 toward Dead Horse Point. A short straight section of Gravel took us to an amazing viewpoint and then around the corner onto a very steep but short downhill to where Chris had made it to on the previous day. Going down “Pucker Pass” was easy, unlike trying to get up. Back through Long Canyon we went, stopping at the highway (279) to congratulate ourselves and give Long Canyon the ADV salute.

We headed down the highway and into Arches. Our passes from day one were still good, so in we went. We headed straight to Windows Arch turnoff (as we had seen everything else already). We came to ride, and it was another scorcher but we were feeling good and somewhat used to the heat by now, so we did a little hiking. Along the way I lent my wide angle to another tourist and took another couples picture with their camera. I guess, body armor aside, I looked the part of a Cameraman.

Note the bottom left, another person for scale reference.

Courtesy of Payner.

OK but you won't like it....

We had done everything we really wanted and decided to relax and cool off before hitting the town for dinner. Paul still wanted to buy a souvenir or two so we went back to Zak’s again and had some more excellent food, before wandering along the main drag (and all the tourist shops). Tomorrow would see us break camp for the first time in a week and leave Moab behind.

__________________I've learned so much from my mistakes. I'm thinking of making a few more.09 KTM 990 Adv

That is new, it has only been there for a couple years. Prior to that you could drive right down to the Arch, indeed people drove right across the arch. I never had it in me to try that in my jeep, but I saw a quad do it once.

The second photo you may have found, but if not trust me it is there, a memorial to a jeeper who went over the cliff. He was the uncle of a friend of mine. As it turned out he had neglected to put on his parking brake and the vehicle started to roll off the cliff. In an effort to save the valuable jeep he jumped back in, sadly failing to stop the jeep he and the jeep went over and it killed him (obviously).

I am not sure now, but you can see a road at the bottom of the canyon, you used to be able to drive right up to the base of the arch. LOTS of sand, but a very nice drive/ride as well. Someone told me that road was closed as well, so I have not been back to find out for sure since. The blockade of the top (first photo) was such a disappointment that we have not been back often at all. Just so you know beyond where the sign now is the road went over several large steps to get down to the arch, and it was a lot of fun to enjoy getting down there. Also when you are coming in from Moab there are several large steps that have been ground down my heavy equipment, presumably in an effort to make it more accessible to people who would then have to walk to the arch.

My buddies were telling me about that as we hiked in and walked around. Sorry for you loss. I can see why they closed the area. Even walking up to it you don't notice the "hole". Same with that other cliff run where literally, if you take a bad bounce on the one step you're going down the canyon 500+ feet. Forget the name of that one. Starts off with a whole bunch of rock ledges though just west of town (very vague, I know)

Moab is a magical place, but it does require some wits and common sense. Sometimes people get a little carried away. My friends and I are guilty of it. I won't deny that.

After packing up at Moab Valley RV Resort we went into town fully loaded up and managed to park in front of the Muffin. Link to the resort: http://www.moabvalleyrv.com/

The Lady at the counter smiled and said, “You’re late!” Compared to normal, we were, and explained why. The food, service and atmosphere were as always great and I can’t imagine even looking for another place for breakfast in Moab the next time. Sadly though, “All good things must come to an end.” Today, for us, was our time in Moab come to an end. Link to the Love Muffin; http://www.lovemuffincafe.com/

The three of us had separate missions to accomplish now and we would be running together for one last day. The most efficient way to get north that I could see was going to be Hwy.191all the way past Flaming Gorge Park and then onto Jackson Wyoming.

Courtesy of Payner.

Courtesy of Payner

We wanted to hit Yellowstone National Park before our paths diverged. It was an ambitious undertaking and would be a long day of mostly boring highway miles. Flaming Gorge is a really nice spot and had some interesting switchbacks coming down the hill. I was perhaps having a little too much fun just before crossing the state line into Wyoming from Utah when a state trooper flipped on his lights just ahead of me. I slowed and he turned them off and carried on, phew! We hit I-80 at Green River, WY and jumped off at Rock Springs, back on 191 north. That stretch was very long, and dull, but improved past Boulder, WY. It actually got fairly cold running through Hoback Canyon and we had (unnecessarily) been warned to watch for “critters”, as this was an ingrained habit for me.

We had also been warned that it would get cold at night (28 degrees the night before) so we voted for a hotel when we got to Jackson. After a few false starts, looking for a hotel / motel (Pulling in front of the Best Western Jackson Hole and Chris saying; “I hope you have your Gold Card”) and finding No Vacancy signs on a couple of others, we ended up in front of The Virginian of Jackson Hole. Sam and Dean Winchester would have been proud (if you understand that reference) and it was like going back in time.

The price was acceptable and there was a restaurant and bar and the whole enchilada. The severed heads in the lobby and the oversized (button tufted) leather chairs added to the 60’s hunting lodge feel. The outside of the building did nothing to take away from that, nor the wood paneling in the room. The room had 3 Queen size beds and a mini fridge and microwave, explaining the mini-suite designation. It was very clean though and that was all that really mattered.

We would miss the restaurant at the Lodge but had been told of a nice place a block down and across the street that was open late. We cleaned up and wandered over in the failing light of day. The place was very interesting and decorated in an aeronautical theme with large-scale planes from various eras hanging from the ceiling. The speakers boomed out the TV programs at a somewhat obnoxious level, but aside from that it was good. I even managed to get a Hockey update on the Kings, Devils series. The food was nothing to write home about, but OK. The beer was good after a long day in the saddle. Sleep came quick when we returned to our mini-suite. The bikes would be covered in frost the next morning proving our choice of hotel vs. campground a good one.

Care to explain why Chris' DR has a "two-tone" front fender (yellow in front, white in back)? It appears to be a hybrid of some sort as the front (yellow) portion doesn't look like o.e. Suzuki. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lycan1

He can field that one but, I know he told me.... Supermotard fender.. because the stock was a bit floppy at highway speeds.... if I recall correctly.

Did Chris reply and I missed it? I was wondering what brand of SuMo fender and how the "graft" was done. Chris can send a PM to me, if he's an inmate. Thanks.

__________________There are some simple thruths......and dogs know what they are - Joseph Duemer

Andy holds the lead. And he will, all the way to the Highway. Today is his day.

The big Orange beast did really well and it was only the upper half of the machine (the rider) that had issues. I would however run a different rear tire for the sandy conditions around Moab next time. I was running a Hiedenau K60 and it is great for the highway and most off-road conditions, but it seemed to just dig itself in when things got really soft. That may have been rider technic issues to, though.

Other than boiling fuel one day, the extra fan modification did the trick and the 990 never even came close to overheating, even when the temp climbed above 112 degrees. The suspension was superb on even the worst surfaces and I think I had it dialed in perfectly after a little tinkering. Even when Paul was being pounded badly on his bike I could ride sitting down comfortably. Standing up, even the worst rock steps didn't bottom the suspension out.

I was very happy with the Adventure's performance all in all.

Next time it's going on Slick Rock trail!

__________________I've learned so much from my mistakes. I'm thinking of making a few more.09 KTM 990 Adv

I did not know the gentleman, and if I recall the accident was in 1980, or 1984, something like that. Like I said, it has been a while since I was there. Our friend mentioned it to me when we brought her along no a family trip to Moab six years ago.

Lycan,

This has been a great trip for me to read. Thanks so much for sharing it with us all. (especially when it is 91/33 degrees out!)

__________________

"Do you know what a soldier is...? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilized folk to despise war."
-Allan Massie

The big Orange beast did really well and it was only the upper half of the machine (the rider) that had issues. I would however run a different rear tire for the sandy conditions around Moab next time. I was running a Hiedenau K60 and it is great for the highway and most off-road conditions, but it seemed to just dig itself in when things got really soft. That may have been rider technic issues to, though.

Other than boiling fuel one day, the extra fan modification did the trick and the 990 never even came close to overheating, even when the temp climbed above 112 degrees. The suspension was superb on even the worst surfaces and I think I had it dialed in perfectly after a little tinkering. Even when Paul was being pounded badly on his bike I could ride sitting down comfortably. Standing up, even the worst rock steps didn't bottom the suspension out.

I was very happy with the Adventure's performance all in all.

Next time it's going on Slick Rock trail!

Is Slick Rock the "MTB" trail once you enter the park?

We did that on day one and it's easy with exception to a few tricky turns. It's more the angles that had my knobbies screaming. Both times you are side hilling a moderate slope and have to do a down hill switch back turn nearly at bar lock. You can feel the tires squirming with all the pressure on the front tire. Easy on a 25lb MTB, not so easy on a 400lb dirt bike that just wants to go DOWN! I imagine a 990 would make things really interesting. The point of staying upright and turning downhill is a fine balancing line. An amazing thing to experience from such a simple trial. Pretty neat! We has some MTB'rs watching us and I had a feeling they were waiting for carnage! Sadly, we both were without incident.

I miss Moab. I'm so happy to be going in a few weeks again but I think the weather will play it's part. I'm more suited for high elevation CO. It's just Moab is so alien.

Next update soon? You're really pounding it out! RR's are time consuming!

Did Chris reply and I missed it? I was wondering what brand of SuMo fender and how the "graft" was done. Chris can send a PM to me, if he's an inmate. Thanks.

Sorry 'bout that, I was away.
I think it's just a generic sumo fender but the PO put it on so I don't know where it came from. If you look closely (no good pix) it's just hacked out around the forks so I'm pretty sure it's not specific to the mighty DR. It works well as it doesn't flop around and provides adequate protection.